EPTPerhaps I should start from the beginning; it’ll be much clearer. When I was just a little boy, I wanted to melt popsicles and lick the syrup out of a bowl, kneeling like a dog, but Mother wouldn’t let me. She said it was ridiculous, and that she wouldn’t buy me popsicles anymore. I always bothered her whenever she spoke with her friends and played cards. Once I woke up and had a bad dream, so I started downstairs, but I heard another voice – not my dad’s – and I grew afraid. The darkness grew so oppressive I started to cry silently. One day, when I was twelve, Mother walked in on me tugging away on the old horse, if you know what I mean. She was furious and beat me with her belt until blood oozed from my back, which she did often and seemed to enjoy thoroughly. In time, I learned to enjoy it, too. When I was fifteen, dad told me Mother had died in a horrific car accident. Dad was a frail old man who had married Mother as a last resort and whose only hobby was drinking. He picked it up after my birth, which was curiously around the time Mother started wearing pants and belts. There was no funeral, nor did I ever see the body, but I took no notice at the time.
It shouldn’t be at all surprising, then, that Luce had great influence over me. She was pale, chalk white, with voluptuous red lips and piercing eyes. She walked over to my table and sat down at the chair opposite me, and just stared at me, boring into my eyes as though she were reading my mind. Then, she leaned over and whispered into my ear, in a soft and didactic hiss, so that no one else could hear: “What do you desire?” She drew out the word desire … desiiire. “You can have it all”, she said. “Simply let me kiss you.” Kiss … kisssss.
I mean, once it happens … you can’t stop it; it’s like a black hole. Nothing can stop the it. Given the freedom of killing anyone you wish, you experience a complete paradigm shift. It starts selectively, of course. You can’t resist it forever, but I waited a week before I succumbed to the uncontrollable lust. After the first few days, it was no longer a matter of deciding whether or not to do it; I simply wanted to prolong my suffering to make my first indulgence all the more pleasurable. My newfound craving was uncontrollable, it drove me insane. Everywhere I looked, I saw nothing but prey, nothing but fresh, sweet, drink. I remember laughing at the idea of being like a mosquito. I even asked myself whether or not mosquitoes could feel, or if they felt remorse. I discarded the fleeting thought as a stupid idea … funny, I wish I hadn’t.
In some ways, I’m glad I did. With great suffering comes exquisite pleasure. That first time was like the first time you try a drug: you feel anxious, nervously awaiting the high, and when it comes… I waited for her on the balcony of her high-rise apartment. She had no blinds, but she couldn’t see me through the windows – darkness tends to envelop me. She took off her red dress, and I baited my time. There is something so sinister, so innocent about a girl taking off her underwear, thighs together, feet apart. I could not wait… I sipped my wine, imagining I was sipping her. She would be my first, but I had to be careful not to break the poor girl. So fragile, so slender … she saw me: an expression mingled with terror and longing spread across her face. I grabbed her hair and she yelled, and I lost all sense of self. She sputtered and gagged and begged and pleaded, and I could do nothing but laugh and grip her hair tighter until she went limp… I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
Now, I’ve always had trouble sleeping. Even before, there’s been this profound sense in me that something is wrong, that I can’t do away with, no matter how much I’ve tried to convince myself it isn’t there. Back then, when I had nothing else, I thought myself to sleep... There once was this guy, I hated him, but not because he was a homosexual. I didn’t want to kill him or anything, because it wasn’t really his fault – he’d grown up living alone, off his mother’s support payments. I just wanted to scare him into growing up. He was round and brutish, with a cruel laugh and innocent eyes; there was little of him I valued then. I told myself once that if I’d ever the chance, I’d deconstruct his little persona before his eyes, to make him see. I’d shame him in front of everybody, trump him in one fell swoop and crush his spirits forever. And then, he’d be sorry.
The next night, I saw him at a night club. I went up to him, and he noticed nothing when we met. Easily enough, we got back to his place, him as fervent as a dog in heat. As he opened the door, I felt my pulse racing. He looked at me eagerly, and a bead of sweat went down my forehead. We walked inside and had a drink of red wine. At this, I relaxed, and waited … it would only be a matter of time, and he would be mine. I admit it: I enjoy the screaming more than anything else. Once he realized what, and who, and how, he began to panic and scrounged and squirmed incessantly. I could not take all the bouncing very long, for I was getting a headache from the obscene noises. Finally, I snapped, and so did he. It was a bit rough, I suppose, but it made everything a lot simpler. I stuck around rummaging through his house and could not help myself from having another drink before I left a few hours later. Indeed, I learned that wine was best drunk at room temperature.
This immediately became a nightly routine. We are creatures of habit, so my daytime life was unaffected at first. Besides, it was so much more satisfying to create a second life during nighttime. My entire life began revolving around sunset and sunrise, markers of my lives. Life was looking much too rosy at this point: I could have anything I wanted. The simplicity of it all was of such a staggering severity; sharp, exact and all-encompassing. There was an underlying flaw, and the train was speeding… And there was no way out. No way to stop the train from crashing, the only way to stop is to die, and the only way to grow is to suffer.
Progressively, I began satisfying all my darkest pleasures, awakening desires I didn’t even know existed. I would itch before sunset and dreaded the eternal wait after sunrise. My lips became perpetually stained with a dark, crimson red that would not wash away. One night, spoiled by depraved overindulgence, I became more violent than usual. In the haze of my frenzy, I murdered several girls one after the other, almost ritualistically. I piled up their bodies and then had every single one of them once their bodies got to room temperature. And as I sat there, feeding, I caught sight of my face in the mirror. My lips were dripping with a crimson red liquid; my eyes like black holes, staring wildly; my skin chalk white, and my face skeletal: complete abandonment. I was lost, so lost I could not bring myself to cry, to think, to feel, to understand anything. What? What could I have done?
It is bizarre, how despite all the conscious mind’s concentrated will to avoid moral treachery, the dark nagging, eternally present, pestilent voice always convinces you – at least some of the time. After my realization, I hesitated for some time before seeking out my next victim, but eventually I could not retain myself. Have you ever had a complete lack of control over your own body? It is like watching a story unfold in front of your eyes, of which you are the central character, though you have no say in what happens. I’ve seen my self do things I would never do; listened to the sickening whispered conversations it has with itself. They don’t want me to hear anything or know anything. They would have me believe this is for my own good, my own survival. But I don’t need anything to live … if you can call this living.
Why, why can’t they go away? They do not even bother whispering anymore, they don’t take any notice of me. There are moments of clarity, and I fear it is simply up to me to put a stop to them. As plain as it may sound, there is no way to solve a problem other than by solving it. But what may I do? Of time and place, I know nothing. I am restless; I have not slept in days – they have locked themselves up in a corner, and they will not tell me their plans. Yet … we sail the same ship, and they cannot escape me forever.
I am restless; I have not drank in weeks or even months. I opened the door of the corner shop, wanting no more than some wine. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. I want more. I want to suck every last drop. They stepped into the store. If you saw their eyes, they’d be bloodshot. They grabbed the girl behind the counter and slit her throat, then kissed her neck as her life drained and faded away, and then they laughed. Their cries chilled me, pressed me into despair, and set my resolve. We sail the same ship; this is my responsibility.
It’s funny how things change. I could never have imagined this life. I was above it and refused to listen to anyone who would tell me of its seduction. Now I rock back and forth, back and forth. I don’t know where I got the strength to get so close, and how I lack the last bit of resolve to do the only thing worth doing. I am so close, just a few more minutes ‘til it’s all over. In these last moments, I realize we are the only ones that decide our fate. The will to act requires immense courage, and no one can give us this courage – it is our own responsibility.
Live to die, die to live.
